Happy Miners' Day
by I 4 2 write
Summary: Everyone is celebrating Miners's Day, which means Rumple and Hook have to interact. This could be fun for Rumple.
1. Chapter 1

Miner's Day had come again. It was such a beloved holiday in Storybrooke that it had continued even after the first curse was broken, through the years that followed. This year, there was no curse to be broken, no villain threatening everyone. Now that the Black Fairy was gone, the final battle was over. It seemed everyone really had found their happy endings- or happy beginnings. This really would be a celebration.

The only difficulty was the Gold, Mills, and Charming families were all connected. That meant since Hook was Emma's husband and technically Henry's stepfather, Rumple and Hook had to try to avoid killing each other. That was easier said than done. The best that could be said was Hook didn't try embedding his hook in Rumple's chest and Rumple didn't make a move to rip Hook's heart out and crush it. Belle gave Rumple a grateful look. She knew this was hard for him. That was enough to help him keep control. That didn't mean either he and Hook couldn't speak their mind and exchange a few insults. They did every chance they had without being overheard.

"Decided to come out of the swamp and socialize Crocodile? Usually don't see you at public gatherings."

Rumple waited until Hook took a bite of some food before he replied.

"Odd, I thought you usually survived off liquid nourishment Dearie." He glanced at a wine bottle and smirked as Hook scowled.

By now, Emma had drank a fair bit of wine. In all honestly, Rumple couldn't say he blamed her. The dwarfs were being loud and boisterous, singing songs in the top of their lungs in their own language. They'd had a few beers, which added to their revelry and subtracted from their thinking. Grumpy was teaching Henry a few colorful words in dwarf.

Hook, on the other hand, was limited to one glass and only water after that. For some reason Emma had been down on his drinking habit ever since she and Regina had returned from the wish realm. Rumple wondered what the Hook in that world was like to have made Emma so amendment against his drinking. He would have loved seeing a drunk, bumbling Hook embarrassing himself. Actually- that wasn't a half bad idea.

With a subtle wave of his hand, Rumple changed the water in Hook's glass. Now, it had an alcohol content higher than any stiff drink the pirate would have tried before. The pirate sipped it with a martyred expression. Once he'd emptied the first glass he looked eagerly at the water pictcher. No one would smell or taste a difference, but he was already feeling it.

"Hmm, you know water isn't actually half bad once you start getting used to it," he commented. He poured himself another glass. Rumple added alcohol to that too, rather than the picture in case anyone else would drink any. Before long, Hook was the most well hydrated pirate in history. He joined in the dwarf songs, making up his own words for them. Luckily the children were busy with their own games. Better they didn't hear language like that. Belle was unaware too. Gideon was being unusually fussy, needing changing or something every few minuets it seemed. If Rumple hadn't known a baby couldn't think in those terms, he would have sworn Gideon was distracting Belle on purpose.

Before much longer, it was impossible not to notice Hook was drunk out of his mind. It was especially obvious when he stood up on a chair, joining in the dwarf songs. Whether anyone else spoke dwarf or no, it was clear those weren't what the lyrics translated to. At least, everyone hoped not. Those words were never meant to be spoken in a family setting.

"Emma! You might want to say something to him," Snow prompted her daughter. It was no use. Emma was every bit as smashed as the pirate was. Her words were a bit too slurred to make sense, but she tried saying something back to Snow. That was right before she passed out face first into a bowl of veggie dip.

"Charming, a little help?" Snow shouted desperately, but there wasn't much he could do other than move Emma's head. Hook slurred something about helping, but ended up falling backwards off the chair he'd been standing on, hitting his head on the table on the way down. Rumple had to walk away then. There was no way he was going to be able to hold back the laughter at that. Belle was back at the table before he was, wondering what had happened. He was just barely able to hide his smirk.

It was a few days later when he overheard Emma talking to Belle. Emma had come into the pawn shop looking for her to ask if she could watch little Neal. Belle had become a bit of a babysitting service lately, not that Rumple minded having children around. Then the talk turned to Miners' Day.

"Killian swears he only drank one glass of wine, I can't remember because those damn Dwarfs singing so loud made me want to drink even more, so I got drunk before he did. I just don't get it. That drunk from one glass of wine? Then Mom and Dad made such a big deal out of it all, especially when Killian stood on a chair and started singing along with the Dwarfs," Emma told her.

"Is that how he ended up on the floor?" Belle asked. "I came back from feeding Gideon just in time to see him laying there."

"Must have been. I don't remember. Anyway, that's not the worst of it. Apparently Killian was using his own lyrics, which little Neal picked on and used in school the next day. He got suspended for a week. Suspended from first grade! And Mom is blaming us for it!"

That did it. Rumple couldn't hold back the laughter anymore. He went into the back room where Gideon was playing in his playpen. He soundproofed it, and then laughed so hard he had to set down. Gideon started laughing too, and once he'd recovered from laughing so much Rumple picked his son up.

"That pirate deserves far worse, but I can still have a little fun with him."

"Ba piwate," Gideon babbled.

"That's right. Bad pirate. Just let's not say that in front of your mother, ok?"

The two spent a little while in the back room before Rumple came out again, holding his son. No one ever had to know about the real reason Hook was so drunk, and it was hardly suspicious. Drunk was the pirate's normal state anyway.


	2. Digging Yourself Deeper

Hook hadn't been allowed near little Neal ever since what had been dubbed the "Miners' Day Incident." He couldn't even remember using the language the boy had picked up, and he had no idea how he'd gotten so drunk he'd ended up standing on a chair and using those lyrics to a tune the dwarfs were singing. Neal had repeated those words in school and had been suspended for a week, and the Charmings still hadn't forgiven Hook.

The worst of it was, that language was becoming a habit for Neal, and the only thing the pirate could think of was to erase those words from the boy's memory completely. The only way he knew how to do that was with a memory potion, and he only knew one place to get that. Hence, why he was breaking into the pawnshop in the middle of the night.

In the Gold family home, an alarm went off. Rumple had had his home and shop broken into too many times, and had long ago rigged a magic alarm to alert him to a break in wherever he was. It took only a second to magically transport himself to the shop, and catch Hook red handed with a bottle of potion in his hand. A snap of Rumple's fingers had Hook frozen.

"You know, if there's one possible way to make hate you even worse, it's stealing from me," Rumple told him. He wasn't sure why exactly Hook wanted a memory potion, but what was stolen didn't matter as much as the act of stealing. He put in a quick call to Emma. As Sheriff, she was going to finally do the right thing and lock the pirate up. He would make certain of that. He could have killed Hook then and there, but he knew who'd be blamed if the pirate ended up dead. Besides, there would be some entertainment when Emma showed up. She came in without even knocking.

"Okay Gold you said someone- Killian? What the Hell?"

"Didn't expect to see him here?" Rumple asked, unfreezing the pirate.

"Swan, listen. This is not what it looks like!" Hook protested.

"Please do tell us how you being in my shop well past closing time with something of mine in your hand isn't what it looks like," Rumple told him.

"You were stealing from Gold? What did you even need from him?" Oh, she was angry. Not at Rumple being stolen from, but at him keeping something from her. She took the bottle and looked at the label. "Memory potion?"

"Look I wasn't stealing it! I was just- er- I was just-" He couldn't come up with a convincing lie, so he tried an unconvincing one. "The Crocodile had me under a trance! He's trying to set me up!"

That was so ridiculous Rumple couldn't help laughing. He could disprove that lie in two seconds.

"Miss Swan, you're still able to tell when you're being lied to aren't you? You know he's lying now whether you want to admit it or not. Don't trust your own instincts? You can use a dream catcher yourself to test my memories and his. He's not under any magical influence. Also, lying to an officer counts as obstruction of justice. Stealing from a shop counts as a class C burglary. The lock on the door is broken, so we can add a charge of breaking and entering with intent to steal."

Hook was looking worried now. Those charges added up to a long time in jail.

"Look Swan you're not really going to arrest me, right?"

"Actually, she has to," Rumple told him. "You've already gotten away with more than one count of attempted murder. This time, you're not getting away with anything. I'm more than a little tired of our sheriff not doing her job."

Emma ignored him.

"Killian you still didn't tell me why you wanted the memory potion. Gold can prove he didn't bring you here. You may as well just say."

So Hook ended up admitting he was going to slip it to Neal.

"You were going to use magic to wipe my little brother's memory?" Emma groaned. "Would you even have had any idea how much to safely use?"

"Uh, no?" He hadn't really thought of that.

"Do you have any idea how wrong that could have gone?" she demanded. "Look I really don't have any choice but to bring you in. We'll sort this out in the morning."

Rather than comply, Hook actually tried bolting from the shop. Rumple magically blocked him before he got anywhere.

"I think now we can add in resisting arrest," Rumple said cheerfully.

"Shut up!" Emma snapped. "You don't have to be enjoying this so much! Will you stop keeping a list of his charges already?"

"No," he answered simply.

She rolled her eyes and was about to lead Hook away when Rumple stopped her.

"Wait one moment." He'd noticed a lump under Hook's jacket. Pushing it aside he saw the knife. "And there's a charge of carrying a concealed weapon."

Emma glared hard at him.

"I don't need your help to handle this," she told him.

"Actually, without my help you would have let a thief escape just a moment ago." He smirked. "You're welcome."

Emma looked like she wanted to slap him, but had no choice but to take Hook away. Charges were most definitely going to be filed. As a lawyer, Rumple was going to see to it Hook was going to jail for a long time. Not as long as he would have liked, but at the very least he'd be where he couldn't do any damage for awhile. No doubt Emma and the pirate were going to have a heated argument on the way to the police station.

Arriving back at home, Rumple went back to bed. The alarm had woken Belle for a moment, but she'd been too tired to get out of bed.

"Rumple? What was that?" she asked sleepily.

"Don't worry about it. There was some trouble at the shop, but it's taken care of now."

She gave a tired moan and drifted back to sleep, leaving Rumple to laugh in silence. Oh, he was going to enjoy court in the morning.


End file.
